important in Rockshire, and his younger brother Edward, who has
specialised in history and become one of those unimaginative men of
letters who are the glory of latter-day England. Then there was
Lewis, further towards Kensington, where his cousins the Solomons
and the Hartsteins lived, a brilliant representative of his race,
able, industrious and invariably uninspired, with a wife a little in
revolt against the racial tradition of feminine servitude and
inclined to the suffragette point of view, and Bunting Harblow, an
old blue, and with an erratic disposition well under the control of
the able little cousin he had married. I had known all these men,
but now (with Altiora floating angelically in benediction) they
opened their hearts to me and took me into their order. They were
all like myself, prospective Liberal candidates, with a feeling that
the period of wandering in the wilderness of opposition was drawing
near its close. They were all tremendously keen upon social and
political service, and all greatly under the sway of the ideal of a
simple, strenuous life, a life finding its satisfactions in
political achievements and distinctions. The young wives were as
keen about it as the young husbands, Margaret most of all, and I--
whatever elements in me didn't march with the attitudes and habits
of this set were very much in the background during that time.

We would give little dinners and have evening gatherings at which
everything was very simple and very good, with a slight but
perceptible austerity, and there was more good fruit and flowers and
less perhaps in the way of savouries, patties and entrees than was
customary. Sherry we banished, and Marsala and liqueurs, and there
was always good home-made lemonade available. No men waited, but
very expert parlourmaids. Our meat was usually Welsh mutton--I
don't know why, unless that mountains have ever been the last refuge